THE LITTLE GOVERNESS

OH, dear, how she wished that it wasn't night-time. She'd have
much rather travelled by day, much much rather. But the lady at
the Governess Bureau said: "You had better take an evening boat
and then if you get into a compartment for 'Ladies Only' in the
train you will be far safer than sleeping in a foreign hotel. Don't go
out of the carriage; don't walk about the corridors and be sure to
lock the lavatory door if you go there. The train arrives at Munich
at eight o'clock, and Frau Arnholdt says that the Hotel
Grunewald is only one minute away. A porter can take you there.
She will arrive at six the same evening, so you will have a nice quiet
day to rest after the journey and rub up your German. And when
you want anything to eat I would advise you to pop into the
nearest baker's and get a bun and some coffee. You haven't been
abroad before, have you?" "No." "Well, I always tell my girls that
it's better to mistrust people at first rather than trust them, and it's
safer to suspect people of evil intentions rather than good
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ones. . . . It sounds rather hard but we've got to be women of the
world, haven't we?"

It had been nice in the Ladies' Cabin. The stewardess was so
kind and changed her money for her and tucked up her feet. She
lay on one of the hard pink-sprigged couches and watched the
other passengers, friendly and natural, pinning their hats to the
bolsters, taking off their boots and skirts, opening dressing-cases
and arranging mysterious rustling little packages, tying their
heads up in veils before lying down. Thud, thud, thud, went the
steady screw of the steamer. The stewardess pulled a green shade
over the light and sat down by the stove, her skirt turned back over
her knees, a long piece of knitting on her lap. On a shelf above her
head there was a water-bottle with a tight bunch of flowers stuck
in it. "I like travelling very much," thought the little governess. She
smiled and yielded to the warm rocking.

But when the boat stopped and she went up on deck, her
dress-basket in one hand, her rug and umbrella in the other, a
cold, strange wind flew under her hat. She looked up at the masts
and spars of the ship, black against a green glittering sky, and
down to the dark landing-stage where strange muffled figures
lounged, waiting; she moved forward with the sleepy flock, all
knowing where to go to and what to do except her, and she felt
afraid. Just a little–just enough to wish–oh, to wish that it was
daytime and that one of those
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women who had smiled at her in the
glass, when they both did their hair in the Ladies' Cabin, was
somewhere near now. "Tickets, please. Show your tickets. Have
your tickets ready." She went down the gangway balancing herself
carefully on her heels. Then a man in a black leather cap came
forward and touched her on the arm. "Where for, Miss?" He spoke
English–he must be a guard or a stationmaster with a cap like
that. She had scarcely answered when he pounced on her
dress-basket. "This way," he shouted, in a rude, determined voice,
and elbowing his way he strode past the people. "But I don't want
a porter." What a horrible man! "I don't want a porter. I want to
carry it myself." She had to run to keep up with him, and her anger,
far stronger than she, ran before her and snatched the bag out of
the wretch's hand. He paid no attention at all, but swung on down
the long dark platform, and across a railway line. "He is a robber." She was sure he was a robber as she stepped between the silvery
rails and felt the cinders crunch under her shoes. On the other
side–oh, thank goodness!–there was a train with Munich
written on it. The man stopped by the huge lighted carriages.
"Second class?" asked the insolent voice. "Yes, a Ladies' compartment." She was quite out of breath. She opened her little
purse to find something small enough to give this horrible man
while he tossed her dress-basket into the rack of an empty carriage
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that had a ticket, Dames Seules, gummed on the window. She got
into the train and handed him twenty centimes. "What's this?" shouted the man, glaring at the money and then at her, holding it
up to his nose, sniffing at it as though he had never in his life seen,
much less held, such a sum. "It's a franc. You know that, don't
you? It's a franc. That's my fare!" A franc! Did he imagine that she
was going to give him a franc for playing a trick like that just
because she was a girl and travelling alone at night? Never, never!
She squeezed her purse in her hand and simply did not see
him–she looked at a view of St. Malo on the wall opposite and
simply did not hear him. "Ah, no. Ah, no. Four sous. You make a
mistake. Here, take it. It's a franc I want." He leapt on to the step
of the train and threw the money on to her lap. Trembling with
terror she screwed herself tight, tight, and put out an icy hand and
took the money–stowed it away in her hand. "That's all you're
going to get," she said. For a minute or two she felt his sharp eyes
pricking her all over, while he nodded slowly, pulling down his
mouth: "Ve-ry well. Trrrès bien." He shrugged his shoulders and
disappeared into the dark. Oh, the relief! How simply terrible that
had been! As she stood up to feel if the dress-basket was firm she
caught sight of herself in the mirror, quite white, with big round
eyes. She untied her "motor veil" and unbuttoned her green cape.
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"But it's all over now," she said to the mirror face, feeling in some
way that it was more frightened than she.

People began to assemble on the platform. They stood together
in little groups talking; a strange light from the station lamps
painted their faces almost green. A little boy in red clattered up
with a huge tea-wagon and leaned against it, whistling and
flicking his boots with a serviette. A woman in a black alpaca
apron pushed a barrow with pillows for hire. Dreamy and vacant
she looked–like a woman wheeling a perambulator–up and
down, up and down–with a sleeping baby inside it. Wreaths of
white smoke floated up from somewhere and hung below the roof
like misty vines. "How strange it all is," thought the little
governess, "and the middle of the night, too." She looked out from
her safe corner, frightened no longer but proud that she had not
given that franc. "I can look after myself–of course I can. The
great thing is not to–" Suddenly from the corridor there came a
stamping of feet and men's voices, high and broken with snatches
of loud laughter. They were coming her way. The little governess
shrank into her corner as four young men in bowler hats passed,
staring through the door and window. One of them, bursting with
the joke, pointed to the notice Dames Seules and the four bent
down the better to see the one little girl in the corner. Oh dear,
they were in the carriage next door.
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She heard them tramping
about, and then a sudden hush followed by a tall thin fellow with
a tiny black moustache who flung her door open. "If mademoiselle cares to come in with us," he said, in French. She saw the others
crowding behind him, peeping under his arm and over his
shoulder, and she sat very straight and still. "If mademoiselle will
do us the honour," mocked the tall man. One of them could be
quiet no longer; his laughter went off in a loud crack.
"Mademoiselle is serious," persisted the young man, bowing and
grimacing. He took off his hat with a flourish, and she was alone
again.

"En voiture. En voi-ture! " Someone ran up and down beside the
train. "I wish it wasn't night-time. I wish there was another
woman in the carriage. I'm frightened of the men next door." The
little governess looked out to see her porter coming back
again–the same man making for her carriage with his arms full of
luggage. But–but what was he doing? He put his thumb nail
under the label Dames Seules and tore it right off, and then stood
aside squinting at her while an old man wrapped in a plaid cape
climbed up the high step. "But this is a ladies' compartment." "Oh
no, Mademoiselle, you make a mistake. No, no I assure you.
Merci, Monsieur." "En voi-turre! " A shrill whistle. The porter
stepped off triumphant and the train started. For a moment or
two big tears brimmed her eyes and through them she saw
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the old
man unwinding a scarf from his neck and untying the flaps of his
Jaeger cap. He looked very old. Ninety at least. He had a white
moustache and big gold-rimmed spectacles with little blue eyes
behind them and pink wrinkled cheeks. A nice face–and
charming the way he bent forward and said in halting French: "Do
I disturb you, Mademoiselle? Would you rather I took all these
things out of the rack and found another carriage?" What! that old
man have to move all those heavy things just because she . . . "No,
it's quite all right. You don't disturb me at all." "Ah, a thousand
thanks." He sat down opposite her and unbuttoned the cape of his
enormous coat and flung it off his shoulders.

The train seemed glad to have left the station. With a long leap
it sprang into the dark. She rubbed a place in the window with her
glove but she could see nothing–just a tree outspread like a black
fan or a scatter of lights, or the line of a hill, solemn and huge. In
the carriage next door the young men started singing "Un, deux,
trois." They sang the same song over and over at the tops of their
voices.

"I never could have dared to go to sleep if I had been alone," she
decided. "I couldn't have put my feet up or even taken off my hat." The singing gave her a queer little tremble in her stomach and,
hugging herself to stop it, with her arms crossed under her cape,
she felt really glad to have the old
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man in the carriage with her.
Careful to see that he was not looking she peeped at him through
her long lashes. He sat extremely upright, the chest thrown out,
the chin well in, knees pressed together, reading a German paper.
That was why he spoke French so funnily. He was a German.
Something in the army, she supposed–a Colonel or a
General–once, of course, not now; he was too old for that now.
How spick and span he looked for an old man. He wore a pearl
pin stuck in his black tie and a ring with a dark red stone on his
little finger; the tip of a white silk handkerchief showed in the
pocket of his double-breasted jacket. Somehow, altogether, he
was really nice to look at. Most old men were so horrid. She
couldn't bear them doddery–or they had a disgusting cough or
something. But not having a beard–that made all the
difference–and then his cheeks were so pink and his moustache
so very white. Down went the German paper and the old man
leaned forward with the same delightful courtesy: "Do you speak
German, Mademoiselle?" "Ja, ein wenig, mehr als Franzosisch," said the little governess, blushing a deep pink colour that spread
slowly over her cheeks and made her blue eyes look almost black.
"Ach, so!" The old man bowed graciously. "Then perhaps you
would care to look at some illustrated papers." He slipped a
rubber band from a little roll of them and handed them across.
"Thank you very much." She was very fond of
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looking at pictures,
but first she would take off her hat and gloves. So she stood up,
unpinned the brown straw and put it neatly in the rack beside the
dress-basket, stripped off her brown kid gloves, paired them in a
tight roll and put them in the crown of the hat for safety, and then
sat down again, more comfortably this time, her feet crossed, the
papers on her lap. How kindly the old man in the corner watched
her bare little hand turning over the big white pages, watched her
lips moving as she pronounced the long words to herself, rested
upon her hair that fairly blazed under the light. Alas! how tragic
for a little governess to possess hair that made one think of
tangerines and marigolds, of apricots and tortoiseshell cats and
champagne! Perhaps that was what the old man was thinking as
he gazed and gazed, and that not even the dark ugly clothes could
disguise her soft beauty. Perhaps the flush that licked his cheeks
and lips was a flush of rage that anyone so young and tender
should have to travel alone and unprotected through the night.
Who knows he was not murmuring in his sentimental German
fashion: "Ja, es ist eine Tragoedie! Would to God I were the child's grandpapa!"

"Thank you very much. They were very interesting." She smiled
prettily handing back the papers. "But you speak German
extremely well," said the old man. "You have been in Germany
before, of course?" "Oh no, this is the first
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time"–a little pause,
then–"this is the first time that I have ever been abroad at all." "Really! I am surprised. You gave me the impression, if I may say
so, that you were accustomed to travelling." "Oh, well–I have
been about a good deal in England, and to Scotland, once." "So. I
myself have been in England once, but I could not learn English." He raised one hand and shook his head, laughing. "No, it was too
difficult for me. . . . 'Ow-do-you-do. Please vich is ze vay to
Leicestaire Squaare.'" She laughed too. "Foreigners always
say . . . " They had quite a little talk about it. "But you will like
Munich," said the old man. "Munich is a wonderful city.
Museums, pictures, galleries, fine buildings and shops, concerts,
theatres, restaurants–all are in Munich. I have travelled all over
Europe many, many times in my life, but it is always to Munich
that I return. You will enjoy yourself there." "I am not going to stay
in Munich," said the little governess, and she added shyly, "I am
going to a post as governess to a doctor's family in Augsburg." "Ah, that was it." Augsburg he knew. Augsburg–well–was not
beautiful. A solid manufacturing town. But if Germany was new
to her he hoped she would find something interesting there too. "I
am sure I shall." "But what a pity not to see Munich before you go.
You ought to take a little holiday on your way"–he smiled–"and
store up some pleasant memories." "I am
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afraid I could not do
that," said the little governess, shaking her head, suddenly
important and serious. "And also, if one is alone . . . " He quite
understood. He bowed, serious too. They were silent after that.
The train shattered on, baring its dark, flaming breast to the hills
and to the valleys. It was warm in the carriage. She seemed to lean
against the dark rushing and to be carried away and away. Little
sounds made themselves heard; steps in the corridor, doors
opening and shutting–a murmur of voices–whistling. . . . Then
the window was pricked with long needles of rain. . . . But it did
not matter . . . it was outside . . . and she had her umbrella . . . she
pouted, sighed, opened and shut her hands once and fell fast
asleep.

"Pardon! Pardon!" The sliding back of the carriage door woke
her with a start. What had happened? Someone had come in and
gone out again. The old man sat in his corner, more upright than
ever, his hands in the pockets of his coat, frowning heavily. "Ha!
ha! ha!" came from the carriage next door. Still half asleep, she put
her hands to her hair to make sure it wasn't a dream.
"Disgraceful!" muttered the old man more to himself than to her.
"Common, vulgar fellows! I am afraid they disturbed you,
gracious Fräulein, blundering in here like that." No, not really. She
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was just going to wake up, and she took out her silver watch to
look at the time. Half-past four. A cold blue light filled the
window panes. Now when she rubbed a place she could see bright
patches of fields, a clump of white houses like mushrooms, a road
"like a picture" with poplar trees on either side, a thread of river.
How pretty it was! How pretty and how different! Even those
pink clouds in the sky looked foreign. It was cold, but she
pretended that it was far colder and rubbed her hands together
and shivered, pulling at the collar of her coat because she was so
happy.

The train began to slow down. The engine gave a long shrill
whistle. They were coming to a town. Taller houses, pink and
yellow, glided by, fast asleep behind their green eyelids, and
guarded by the poplar trees that quivered in the blue air as if on
tiptoes, listening. In one house a woman opened the shutters,
flung a red and white mattress across the window frame and stood
staring at the train. A pale woman with black hair and a white
woollen shawl over her shoulders. More women appeared at the
doors and at the windows of the sleeping houses. There came a
flock of sheep. The shepherd wore a blue blouse and pointed
wooden shoes. Look! look what flowers–and by the railway
station too! Standard roses like bridesmaids' bouquets, white
geraniums, waxy pink ones that you would never see out of a
greenhouse at home. Slower and slower. A man with a
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watering–can was spraying the platform. "A-a-a-ah!" Somebody
came running and waving his arms. A huge fat woman waddled
through the glass doors of the station with a tray of strawberries.
Oh, she was thirsty! She was very thirsty! "A-a-a-ah!" The same
somebody ran back again. The train stopped.

The old man pulled his coat round him and got up, smiling at
her. He murmured something she didn't quite catch, but she
smiled back at him as he left the carriage. While he was away the
little governess looked at herself again in the glass, shook and
patted herself with the precise practical care of a girl who is old
enough to travel by herself and has nobody else to assure her that
she is "quite all right behind." Thirsty and thirsty! The air tasted of
water. She let down the window and the fat woman with the
strawberries passed as if on purpose, holding up the tray to her.
"Nein, danke," said the little governess, looking at the big berries
on their gleaming leaves. "Wei viel? " she asked as the fat woman
moved away. "Two marks fifty, Fräulein." "Good gracious!" She
came in from the window and sat down in the corner, very
sobered for a minute. Half a crown! "H-o-o-o-o-e-e-e!" shrieked
the train, gathering itself together to be off again. She hoped the
old man wouldn't be left behind. Oh, it was daylight–everything
was lovely if only she hadn't been so thirsty. Where was the old man–oh, here
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he was–she dimpled at him as though he were an
old accepted friend as he closed the door and, turning, took from
under his cape a basket of the strawberries. "If Fräulein would
honour me by accepting these . . . " "What, for me?" But she drew
back and raised her hands as though he were about to put a wild
little kitten on her lap.

"Certainly, for you," said the old man. "For myself it is twenty
years since I was brave enough to eat strawberries." "Oh, thank
you so very much. Danke bestens," she stammered, "sie sind so
sehr schön! " "Eat them and see," said the old man, looking pleased
and friendly. "You won't have even one?" "No, no, no." Timidly
and charmingly her hand hovered. They were so big and juicy she
had to take two bites to them–the juice ran all down her
fingers–and it was while she munched the berries that she first
thought of the old man as her grandfather. What a perfect
grandfather he would make! Just like one out of a book!

The sun came out, the pink clouds in the sky, the strawberry
clouds were eaten by the blue. "Are they good?" asked the old man.
"As good as they look?"

When she had eaten them she felt she had known him for years.
She told him about Frau Arnholdt and how she had got the place.
Did he know the Hotel Grunewald? Frau Arnholdt would not
arrive until the evening. He listened, listened until he knew as
much about the affair as she did, until he
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said–not looking at
her–but smoothing the palms of his brown suède gloves
together: "I wonder if you would let me show you a little of
Munich to-day. Nothing much–but just perhaps a picture gallery
and the Englischer Garten. It seems such a pity that you should
have to spend the day at the hotel, and also a little
uncomfortable . . . in a strange place. Nicht wahr? You would be
back there by the early afternoon or whenever you wish, of
course, and you would give an old man a great deal of pleasure."

It was not until long after she had said "Yes"–because the
moment she had said it and he had thanked her he began telling
her about his travels in Turkey and attar of roses–that she
wondered whether she had done wrong. After all, she really did
not know him. But he was so old and he had been so very
kind–not to mention the strawberries. . . . And she couldn't have
explained the reason why she said "No," and it was her last day in a
way, her last day to really enjoy herself in. "Was I wrong? Was I?" A drop of sunlight fell into her hands and lay there, warm and
quivering. "If I might accompany you as far as the hotel," he
suggested, "and call for you again at about ten o'clock." He took
out his pocket-book and handed her a card. "Herr Regierungsrat. . . . " He had a title! Well, it was bound to be all right! So after
that the little governess gave herself up to the excitement of being
really abroad, to looking out
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and reading the foreign advertisement signs, to being told about the places they came to–having
her attention and enjoyment looked after by the charming old
grandfather–until they reached Munich and the Hauptbahnhof.
"Porter! Porter!" He found her a porter, disposed of his own
luggage in a few words, guided her through the bewildering
crowd out of the station down the clean white steps into the white
road to the hotel. He explained who she was to the manager as
though all this had been bound to happen, and then for one
moment her little hand lost itself in the big brown suède ones. "I
will call for you at ten o'clock." He was gone.

"This way, Fräulein," said the waiter, who had been dodging
behind the manager's back, all eyes and ears for the strange
couple. She followed him up two flights of stairs into a dark
bedroom. He dashed down her dress-basket and pulled up a
clattering, dusty blind. Ugh! what an ugly, cold room–what
enormous furniture! Fancy spending the day in here! "Is this the
room Frau Arnholdt ordered?" asked the little governess. The
waiter had a curious way of staring as if there was something
funny about her. He pursed up his lips about to whistle, and then
changed his mind. "Gewiss," he said. Well, why didn't he go? Why
did he stare so? "Gehen Sie," said the little governess, with frigid
English simplicity. His little eyes, like currants, nearly popped out
of his doughy cheeks. "Gehen Sie sofort," she repeated icily. At the
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door he turned. "And the gentleman," said he, "shall I show the
gentleman upstairs when he comes?"

Over the white streets big white clouds fringed with silver–and
sunshine everywhere. Fat, fat coachmen driving fat cabs; funny
women with little round hats cleaning the tramway lines; people
laughing and pushing against one another; trees on both sides of
the streets and everywhere you looked almost, immense
fountains; a noise of laughing from the footpaths or the middle of
the streets or the open windows. And beside her, more beautifully
brushed than ever, with a rolled umbrella in one hand and yellow
gloves instead of brown ones, her grandfather who had asked her
to spend the day. She wanted to run, she wanted to hang on his
arm, she wanted to cry every minute, "Oh, I am so frightfully
happy!" He guided her across the roads, stood still while she
"looked," and his kind eyes beamed on her and he said "just
whatever you wish." She ate two white sausages and two little rolls
of fresh bread at eleven o'clock in the morning and she drank
some beer, which he told her wasn't intoxicating, wasn't at all like
English beer, out of a glass like a flower vase. And then they took a
cab and really she must have seen thousands and thousands of
wonderful classical pictures in about a quarter of an hour! "I shall
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have to think them over when I am alone." . . . But when they came
out of the picture gallery it was raining. The grandfather unfurled
his umbrella and held it over the little governess. They started to
walk to the restaurant for lunch. She, very close beside him so that
he should have some of the umbrella too. "It goes easier," he
remarked in a detached way, "if you take my arm, Fräulein. And
besides it is the custom in Germany." So she took his arm and
walked beside him while he pointed out the famous statues, so
interested that he quite forgot to put down the umbrella even
when the rain was long over.

After lunch they went to a café to hear a gypsy band, but she did
not like that at all. Ugh! such horrible men were there with heads
like eggs and cuts on their faces, so she turned her chair and
cupped her burning cheeks in her hands and watched her old
friend instead . . . . Then they went to the Englischer Garten.

"I wonder what the time is," asked the little governess. "My
watch has stopped. I forgot to wind it in the train last night. We've
seen such a lot of things that I feel it must be quite late." "Late!" He
stopped in front of her laughing and shaking his head in a way she
had begun to know. "Then you have not really enjoyed yourself.
Late! Why, we have not had any ice-cream yet!" "Oh, but I have
enjoyed myself," she cried, distressed, "more than I can possibly
say. It
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has been wonderful! Only Frau Arnholdt is to be at the
hotel at six and I ought to be there by five." "So you shall. After the
ice-cream I shall put you into a cab and you can go there
comfortably." She was happy again. The chocolate ice-cream
melted–melted in little sips a long way down. The shadows of the
trees danced on the tablecloths, and she sat with her back safely
turned to the ornamental clock that pointed to twenty-five
minutes to seven. "Really and truly," said the little governess
earnestly, "this has been the happiest day of my life. I've never even
imagined such a day." In spite of the ice-cream her grateful baby
heart glowed with love for the fairy grandfather.

So they walked out of the garden down a long alley. The day
was nearly over. "You see those big buildings opposite," said the
old man. "The third storey–that is where I live. I and the old
housekeeper who looks after me." She was very interested. "Now
just before I find a cab for you, will you come and see my little
'home' and let me give you a bottle of the attar of roses I told you
about in the train? For remembrance?" She would love to. "I've
never seen a bachelor's flat in my life," laughed the little governess.

The passage was quite dark. "Ah, I suppose my old woman has
gone out to buy me a chicken. One moment." He opened a door
and stood aside for her to pass, a little shy but curious, into a
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strange room. She did not know quite what to say. It wasn't
pretty. In a way it was very ugly–but neat, and, she supposed,
comfortable for such an old man. "Well, what do you think of it?" He knelt down and took from a cupboard a round tray with two
pink glasses and a tall pink bottle. "Two little bedrooms beyond," he said gaily, "and a kitchen. It's enough, eh?" "Oh, quite enough." "And if ever you should be in Munich and care to spend a day or
two–why, there is always a little nest–a wing of a chicken, and a
salad, and an old man delighted to be your host once more and
many many times, dear little Fräulein!" He took the stopper out of
the bottle and poured some wine into the two pink glasses. His
hand shook and the wine spilled over the tray. It was very quiet in
the room. She said: "I think I ought to go now." "But you will have
a tiny glass of wine with me–just one before you go?" said the old
man. "No, really no. I never drink wine. I–I have promised never
to touch wine or anything like that." And though he pleaded and
though she felt dreadfully rude, especially when he seemed to take
it to heart so, she was quite determined. "No, really, please." "Well,
will you just sit down on the sofa for five minutes and let me drink
your health?" The little governess sat down on the edge of the red
velvet couch and he sat down beside her and drank her health at a
gulp. "Have you really been happy to-day?" asked the old man,
turning round, so
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close beside her that she felt his knee twitching
against hers. Before she could answer he held her hands. "And are
you going to give me one little kiss before you go?" he asked,
drawing her closer still.

It was a dream! It wasn't true! It wasn't the same old man at all.
Ah, how horrible! The little governess stared at him in terror.
"No, no, no!" she stammered, struggling out of his hands. "One
little kiss. A kiss. What is it? Just a kiss, dear little Fräulein. A kiss." He pushed his face forward, his lips smiling broadly; and how his
little blue eyes gleamed behind the spectacles! "Never–never.
How can you!" She sprang up, but he was too quick and he held
her against the wall, pressed against her his hard old body and his
twitching knee, and though she shook her head from side to side,
distracted, kissed her on the mouth. On the mouth! Where not a
soul who wasn't a near relation had ever kissed her before. . . .

She ran, ran down the street until she found a broad road with
tram lines and a policeman standing in the middle like a
clockwork doll. "I want to get a tram to the Hauptbahnhof," sobbed the little governess. "Fräulein?" She wrung her hands at
him. "The Hauptbahnhof. There–there's one now," and while he
watched very much surprised, the little girl with her hat on one
side, crying without a handkerchief, sprang on to the tram–
[Page 260]
not
seeing the conductor's eyebrows, nor hearing the hochwohlgebildete Dame talking her over with a scandalised friend. She rocked
herself and cried out loud and said "Ah, ah!" pressing her hands to
her mouth. "She has been to the dentist," shrilled a fat old woman,
too stupid to be uncharitable. "Na, sagen Sie 'mal, what
toothache! The child hasn't one left in her mouth." While the tram
swung and jangled through a world full of old men with twitching
knees.

When the little governess reached the hall of the Hotel
Grunewald the same waiter who had come into her room in the
morning was standing by a table, polishing a tray of glasses. The
sight of the little governess seemed to fill him out with some
inexplicable important content. He was ready for her question;
his answer came pat and suave. "Yes, Fräulein, the lady has been
here. I told her that you had arrived and gone out again
immediately with a gentleman. She asked me when you were
coming back again–but of course I could not say. And then she
went to the manager." He took up a glass from the table, held it up
to the light, looked at it with one eye closed, and started polishing
it with a corner of his apron. " . . . ?" "Pardon, Fräulein? Ach, no,
Fräulein. The manager could tell her nothing–nothing." He
shook his head and smiled at the brilliant glass. "Where is the
[Page 261]
lady
now?" asked the little governess, shuddering so violently that she
had to hold her handkerchief up to her mouth. "How should I
know?" cried the waiter, and as he swooped past her to pounce
upon a new arrival his heart beat so hard against his ribs that he
nearly chuckled aloud. "That's it! that's it!" he thought. "That will
show her." And as he swung the new arrival's box on to his
shoulders–hoop !–as though he were a giant and the box a
feather, he minced over again the little governess's words, "Gehen
Sie. Gehen Sie sofort. Shall I! Shall I!" he shouted to himself.

This chapter has been put on-line as part of the
BUILD-A-BOOK Initiative at the Celebration of Women Writers.
Initial text entry and proof-reading of this chapter were the work of volunteer Eric Eldred.